By Dan Weber
NKyTribune sports reporter
Save the videotape.
When they get around to ranking the weirdest, wackiest game-winning final plays in football history, the Kentucky Barrels’ 37-36 win over the Nashville Kats — with no time left on the clock in this battle of unbeatens Sunday — will certainly be in the mix.
And Barrels’ coach Cedric Walker will still not be pleased with the way this all played out. Sure, he’ll take the win that sets up Saturday’s showdown for first place at the unbeaten Albany Firebirds. And Walker will praise the one bit of inspiration/desperation by three Barrels’ players that made it possible.
But that it had to happen at all, well, “It was an absolute (bleep)-up,” Walker said of the final botched play with the Barrels needing just one score from the eight plays they ran inside the 10-yard line in the final 1:00. Unfortunately for the home team, they executed exactly none of those eight plays correctly.
They threw the ball into the stands. They missed open receivers. They found themselves stopped dead at the line of scrimmage three times. But on the first fourth down, they were gifted a first down on a Nashville hold away from play.
Then on the second fourth down – and third play from just inches away for the win – they fumbled the ball on a “quarterback wedge” play popularly known as a quarterback sneak. And that should have been it. A 36-31 loss. And a whole host of recriminations about whose fault this loss was.
And no, quarterback Shea Spencer, in his second start, did not resemble in any way the nearly perfect passer from the Barrels’ 80-point offense against the Oceanside, (Calif.) Bombers two weeks ago. All he could do on that last play was scoop the ball up as he was being lifted into the air for a WWE smash-down into the turf while realizing he had no chance of scoring. And there were no downs, nor any time, left.
“Out of desperation,” Spencer replayed what happened in his head. “I saw a flash of white.” That was Darius Prince, lined up in the backfield whose job on this play was to be a decoy and absolutely not to push the quarterback into the end zone. “The ‘tush push’ is illegal in Arena Ball,” Prince said. “The ref kept reminding us to keep our hands off the quarterback.”
So there he was, watching in horror and screaming his quarterback’s name. Spencer said he didn’t hear Prince but did see him just barely enough to one-hand hook shot the ball to Prince who headed left as he was tracked down by the defense even farther from the goal line.
But Prince had an answer, too. “I knew (Dezmon) Epps was behind me.” And so the quick return man was. And Prince shoveled the ball to him in two-handed volleyball style. And that was It as Epps scampered in for the score.
Asked what he was doing on that play, former Ohio State and New York Jet wide receiver Jalin Marshall said with a big grin: “I made the block that got him in,” then added, “He’d have made it anyway.”
And there it was. In the flash of an eye. A crushing loss turned into one of those “Did that really happen?” moments, from down 36-31 and out, to up 37-36, and still unbeaten in the next. And with no time left.
“Just a heads-up play by all three of us,” Prince said. And no one was disputing that.
But all in game that had Walker saying “I apologize to the fans,” for the way his team performed after a bye week off. “That game was horrendous.” But the crowd, with a passel of Nashville fans making themselves heard, how about that? “A great crowd and we played like (bleep) in front of a lot of people,” Walker said.
It would take a final officials’ review on a night full of them with both teams straining just yards away from the replay monitor as the Truist Arena crowd held its collective breath before the referee signaled the touchdown was indeed, good.
Just one final bit of craziness on a night when both kickers missed extra points only to immediately follow up by scoring a deuce – the two points that Arena Football One awards a kickoff through the uprights on what would be equivalent to a 70-yard field goal.
But the craziness that preserved the 3-0 Barrels’ win didn’t end there. Down 22-13 with .03 left in the first half, the Barrels stopped the Kats at the 1-yard-line which could have had the Barrels down a possibly insurmountable16 points, 29-13, at halftime.
Talk about dodging bullets. Or missing opportunities. The Barrels did plenty of both.
“We’re not a team that can turn it off and then turn it on,” Walker said. And yet, after 4-0 Albany, they’re the only other unbeaten team in the league. And they did get something else with this win over a good Nashville team.
“We only play once,” Walker said, “So we’ll get the tiebreaker with them.”
In the end, “We gutted it out,” Walker said, crediting his lines – both offense and defense – with leading the way and placing the blame on “our skills (guys).”
One defensive lineman who made big play after big play for the Barrels was end Sidney Houston Jr. out of Ball State.
One final place to place the blame, Walker made clear: “That was on me . . . I have to do a better job.”
SCORING SUMMARY
Nashville Kats 8 15 6 7–36
Kentucky Barrels 7 6 16 8—37
Barrels: Prince 6 pass from Spencer (Baum PAT kick good)
Kats: Smith 8pass from Kulka (Kaplan PAT kick fails)
Kats: Kaplan deuce kickoff
Kats: Maxwell 2 run (Kaplan PAT kick good)
Kats: Gandy 36 pass from Kulka (Kaplan PAT kick good)
Barrels: Marshall 21 pass from Spencer (Baum PAT kick good)
Barrels: Prince 23 pass from Spencer (Baum PAT kick good)
Kats: Honeycutt 13 pass from Kulka (Kaplan PAT kick good)
Barrels: Buttiglierri 2 run (Baum PAT kick fails)
Barrels: Baum 18 FG
Kats: Honeycutt 8 pass from Kulka (Kaplan PAT kick good)
Barrels: Epps 1 run (no PAT attempted)